


Promises

by Crowsister



Series: Candle [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, I die like a man, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, barely any editors, emotional catharsis, grammarly barely counts as an editor, implied WoL/Thancred if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28606524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowsister/pseuds/Crowsister
Summary: Mahri Rhivesa wakes up a ticking time bomb, doomed to be a monster, and pissed beyond all belief when she'd been told she'd be killed before this ever happened.Ardbert is just done.
Relationships: Ardbert & Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Series: Candle [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053773
Kudos: 9





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this in my drafts since October 2019, as I was playing through Shadowbringers, but something about today just Unlocked the emotions I needed to really finish this.

Mahri woke. A shroud of exhaustion weighed heavy upon her, but she woke all the same.

She sat up, running a hand through her hair as she looked about her surroundings. Her room at the Pendants. She...she shouldn’t be here. She was at the top of Mt. Gulg. She was...

 _“Good, you’re awake,”_ Ardbert’s voice called, and she snapped to look at his ghostly form. He stood next to the dining room table, looking at her over his shoulder. He stepped to face her fully as she jumped out of bed. He stooped to catch her, hand stopping right as she caught herself with a hand clutching her head.

She hissed, “What. Happened?”

_“Mahri-”_

“I shouldn’t be alive!” she snarled, her voice shaking. “I was turning into a Sin Eater, he promised-”

Ardbert went to reach out to her, and she staggered back, vision searing into a blinding white. She felt a gentle hand on the top of her head, and she pressed into it, chasing the soothing dark it supplied. She slowly opened her eyes (when had she closed them?) and saw Ardbert kneeling and looking at her with concerned blue eyes.

 _“You need to keep calm,”_ he said. Mahri opened her mouth, and he raised his free hand. _“I know that’s hard. In your position, I’d be rioting too. But the little Oracle — Ryne — put a temporary fix on you, and if you lose it too much, that fix will break, and you’ll turn into a monster right in the middle of the Crystarium.”_

“I just...” She ran a hand through her hair, her hand passing through Ardbert’s ghostly gauntlet. “He promised me that if I turned...”

 _“I know,”_ Ardbert replied. _“You made your loverboy promise to kill you if you turned. But you’re not turned, yeah?”_

Mahri looked at her hands. They...they looked the same. No plaster texture to them, like the little Drahn boy from the Inn. She touched her face, her arms, her armpits — any bit of skin she could reach. Just to check for that immaculate plaster texture. And there was none. “I...I’m not.”

 _“Nope.”_ She looked up, surprised to hear the soft smile in his voice, and even more to see it on his face. _“What did I tell you? Trust your friends, and they’ll have your back.”_

“I...” She teared up and then immediately sought to exterminate any sign that she was crying.

 _“Hey, no, no crying, I’m terrible at dealing with crying,”_ Ardbert sputtered, _“Lamitt always knew what to do-”_

“No, Ardbert, don’t worry about it,” Mahri muttered, her nose stuffy. “I’m not crying.”

_“Oh, that’s worse. Better to cry than bottle it up like an Araenian cocktail.”_

“Mixed signals, Ardbert.” Mahri was surprised at the chuckle that croaked out of her. “But I’m gonna choose to focus on Araenian cocktail. What’s that?”

_“Alcohol, you put a rag mostly in it, have the end sticking out to light it on fire-”_

“Oh, I know that as an Uldahn cocktail.”

_“Makes sense. The two are kinda the same except where they’re nothing alike.”_

Mahri’s lips twitched into a smile. “Like us?”

 _“Yeah.”_ Ardbert snorted. _“Yeah. Bet if I was where you are now and you were where I’ve been, you’d be giving me a pep talk.”_

“If there is anything I am terrible at, it is pep talks.”

_“Amaroshit! You kindle hope like a firestarter kindles fire.”_

“Yeah, because what people think I am,” Mahri replied. “I get all this hero-worship when I’m just really good at killing stuff.”

_“Stuff like primals?”_

“Well, yes, they’re stuff.” Mahri ran a hand through her hair. “Primals are stuff, and Ascians are stuff. They’re different because they can do different things, but I’m just an overhyped killer because I faceplanted into mythology older than reality as we know it. But I can’t tell people that because-”

_“The mythology gives them hope.”_

Mahri nodded, huffing a bit. “Yeah. But it’s nothing I do; it’s just that the easiest lies to sell are the ones that people already believe. They believe that I’m one of the two Warriors of Light that the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have on hand, and they have heard stories about me. The stories that are all pushing an agenda of _hope_. And I’m not even allowed to be mad about it! What’re my feelings compared to the overall safety and happiness of countless people of not one, but two worlds?” 

Mahri took a deep breath, centering herself. She could feel the light inside her like her normal fire; mayhap, she could control it the same way. “Ardbert, they don’t know about how Ifrit tried to burn one of my eyes out or how I got poisoned at the Ishgardian peace talks with the dragons. Even here, they know that where my friends and I went, night followed.” 

The ilm of a thought that had been haunting her for years, since the fall of the Ultima Weapon, turned into a malm in her head. It spilled out of her quickly, “Heroes don’t peddle in truth: we give the people what they want in the name of their safety. A dead god from a group of people oppressed and betrayed at every turn? Sure. End a war that had been going on long enough its history had been forgotten? Sure. Liberate two separate countries? Sure. Folks should believe in a lie like those. It’s better than the alternative, that their actions and those around them got them fucked harder than a BDSM session with no safeword. And that they, tiny individual civvies, can do _shite_ about it by themselves.”

 _“You know,”_ Ardbert replied, _“here’s the bit I think you’re missing. Were you told stories at all as a kid growing up?”_

Mahri’s lips pulled into a tense line. “...what do you mean?” She tilted her head at him.

_“Like fairy tales. Holiday stuff. If you’re a good girl in winter, you’ll get presents. If you’re bad, the fuath’ll eat you. That sort of thing?”_

“...no.”

_“Okay. How do you feel about them?”_

“They’re...weird, but kinda harmless.” Mahri shrugged. “People have fun. I don’t get it, but I stay in my lane.”

_“Okay. Not ideal for me to explain this to then, but also not a lost cause. So. A lot of those stories are meant to teach things to children. Can we agree on that?”_

“Yeah, that’s just efficient,” Mahri answered. “People like being entertained, especially children. Nothing wrong with that.”

 _“Oh gods, did you_ **_also_ ** _get a Ph.D. in life like all of your friends?”_

“No. I was a thief then fell ass-backward into hero-dom. Good thieves are efficient ones.”

 _“Oh, there is_ **_so_ ** _much to unpack there, but I’m gonna leave it alone until after your situation is fixed.”_ Ardbert rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers. _“Okay. The stories teach them about a lot of things they can’t touch, right? Manners, kindness, respect, yeah?”_

“...I’ve never thought about it like that, but I can agree.”

_“It’s all training.”_

“For what?”

_“To believe in the bigger stuff that they can’t touch. Justice. Truth. Goodness. And give them a model of how to be all of that. Believing in fairy tales and holiday traditions — things that may necessarily not exist — is training to believe in bigger stuff that doesn’t necessarily exist.”_

Mahri frowned at him. “Justice and truth exist. If they don’t, then what’s the point of all of-” She gestured at their surroundings, then at the window. “-all of existence? Well, sapient, sentient existence.”

_“Exactly. Now, here’s the thing: you pointed out how hard it is to be that Plain Joe at home, unable to do anything. But what’s the core of the popular heroic stories?”_

“Happily ever after?”

_“Sure, but how does the hero get there?”_

“Sheer will and perseverance.”

 _“You’re kidding me.”_ Ardbert tried to put his hands on her face, but they ghosted through her as she dodged him. _“Oh my gods, how are you the only person who can see me? We are_ **_nothing_ ** _alike!”_

“Just **tell** me, Ardbert!”

_“They have friends! The hero has friends! Sure, they might not get the central spotlight, but the good stories that people like and come back to, the hero has friends! Who helps them! You! You have friends that help you!”_

“...oh.”

 _“Oh.”_ Ardbert covered his face in his hands and exhaled deeply. He looked at her again. _“And when Plain Joe sees a hero has friends, he gets to thinking. What if I had friends? What could I accomplish if I wasn’t alone?”_ Ardbert stood up. _“And then, the miracle of all miracles, he_ ** _does_ **_something bigger than himself. Sure, you’re the big hero right now. But you’re not_ **alone** , Mahri. I’m here, and your scholarly and winded friends are here, hells you have a half-sibling who’s here! Gods know I would’ve loved for my siblings to get what I was experiencing, and here you are, with a whole sibling who’s going through the same thing; they are just in the room next door! You’ll get through this, not because of some cosmic fate making you a hero, but because at the end of the day, you’re a person who has friends and a support network who will help you to the best of their very, stupidly really, impressive abilities.”

Mahri opened her mouth, but Ardbert gave her a Look. _“Mahri Rhivesa, if you say they’re not your friends and they just care about what you can do for them, I_ **_will_ **_scream. It_ **_will_ ** _wake Rex up.”_

She squinted at him. “...I can’t even say it as a joke to deflate the tension?”

 _“Not when I know you believe it.”_ Ardbert looked at the wall. _“Look, Rex is waking up. I’m going to help them as I did you. If you do_ **_anything_ ** _reckless, I will figure out how to get your soul stuck like mine so that I can haunt you.”_


End file.
